


Left Unspoken

by what_on_io



Category: Red Dwarf
Genre: Bittersweet, Comfort, Episode Related, Fluff, Gen, Sharing a Bed
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-28
Updated: 2014-12-28
Packaged: 2018-03-03 22:08:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 827
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2889671
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/what_on_io/pseuds/what_on_io
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Short one-shot set during Me2. Lister offers comfort after Rimmer's fight with his double, in a way they've both come to appreciate.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Left Unspoken

If Lister ever thought he'd be so spectacularly wrong about something, it certainly wasn't this. He'd foreseen great things for the moment Rimmer finally moved out; a new outlook on life, a proverbial spring in his step, a good night's sleep on the spacious bottom bunk, freedom from his smoking ban and his self-hypnosis tapes. Instead, he's traipsing around the bunkroom with the stench of dirty laundry haunting him like an especially persistent animal.

He might as well be a divorcé, except he's been unlucky enough to actually miss out on the marriage part as compensation. He imagines post-wedding bliss with his (ex) roommate and attempts a shudder at the image. He's no longer surprised to find it feels forced.

He didn't think the initial liberation from Rimmer's anal-retentive habits would provide such a temporary high; but, that said, there are an extremely limited number of things in the room to create chaos from. After the joy of browsing through what remains of Rimmer's things and the anticlimax of flopping into the comfortable bottom bunk, he realises that his actions so far have done nothing but drag up memories of the other man, and stops.

Before long he finds himself wandering out into the corridor to find Rimmer, who appears annoyingly well-adjusted to his new smegging life. He's 'overseeing' the painting of the corridor, which Lister imagines is right up his alley in terms of Most Fun Things To Do. Lister rolls his eyes for show and wanders off, beer can in hand, determined not to let Rimmer glimpse the stupid wistful expression that's attached itself to his face.

Later, it becomes clear that no matter how well-adjusted a façade Rimmer summons up during the day, it disappears entirely at night. He can hear the screaming through the walls, and rolls over in his bunk to face the door, waiting for the moment Rimmer will inevitably storm through it and throw himself onto his old bed. He doesn't doubt for a second that Rimmer will return to their shared bunkroom after his domestic with his other self. Where else would he go? They crave sentient company, all of them, else they'd have taken separate rooms long ago. He tries to imagine Rimmer heading off to an empty corridor after such a raging dispute with his double, and can't quite comprehend the concept.

Rimmer's voice is quiet when he does return, rolling into his own bunk. He mutters something that downplays the fight, although Lister heard it all through the walls. He finds himself wondering how one’s own psyche can be so utterly smegged up, but then, he reasons, this is _Rimmer_. Judging by what the other man has mentioned of his past, it’s surprising he can function in day-to-day life.

Lister’s about to fall into a restless sleep when the banging and yelling from the other room starts, and he heaves himself into a sitting position in time to see Rimmer leap out of bed to scream at his double from the doorway. He looks vaguely apologetic when he returns to his bunk, or maybe sheepish is a better word. Lister wordlessly scoots over, placing himself closer to the wall in his bunk, an unspoken invitation. He knows Rimmer won’t accept it immediately, and he’s right. There’s a solid ten minutes of silence in which neither man moves. Even Lister’s breaths are measured. This moment - which is starting to seem like an age - has never been verbally agreed upon, but Lister knows without knowing quite how, that Rimmer needs this to adjust, just like he needs the bickering through the day, so he can go on pretending he and Lister despise each other’s company. If they pretend they’ve fallen asleep already, perhaps it will be more acceptable, at least in the other man’s mind. Maybe it can be passed off as a dream or a moment of madness.

Lister senses the moment is finally over when he hears a shift from below, and then he spies Rimmer’s movement in the darkness before he heaves himself up into the top bunk. Lister presses himself as close to the wall as he can physically manage, and gently, hesitantly, places his left hand where Rimmer’s thigh would be. He tries to imagine he feels something other than the vague buzz of static, and brings himself to whisper, “I missed you, man,”. Rimmer makes a noise of assent, and Lister remembers a time before the accident when the other man would bury his face in Lister’s neck. He closes his eyes in a vain attempt to forget that the man next to him is comprised entirely of light, and that when he wakes in the morning they will both go on pretending these nightly escapades never happened. He falls asleep with his left hand jutting through Rimmer’s projection, and when the other man wakes first, he will smile at the image before carefully and needlessly disentangling himself from Lister's futile grasp.

**Author's Note:**

> I have no idea why I wrote this, but I needed to write something. I totally want to write another chapter where things finally get hashed out, because I'm a total wimp and can't bear to leave them unhappy, but I think this might be best left how it is.


End file.
